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Areva, a French nuclear power group, has launched a takeover bid for a German wind turbine company, valuing it at â¬850m ($1.1bn), amid increasing political and commercial support for renewable energy worldwide.

Areva, which holds 29.9% of turbine company Repower, declared this morning it would offer €105 per share to buy the remaining shares it does not own.

Fritz Vahrenholt, chief executive of Repower, said the company backed the offer.

Mergers and acquisitions bankers polled by Financial News earlier this month picked renewable energy as one of the hot sectors for dealmaking this year.

Announced deals in Europe for alternative energy companies almost doubled from €3.8bn in 2005 to €6.5bn last year, according to Zephyr, the M&A financial data provider.

The largest announced alternative energy deal by a European company was a €3.3bn offer tabled by Iberdrola, the Spanish power company, for the US-based wind power assets of Gamesa Corporación Tecnológica's last year.